Major stat block issues (SPOILER)

Can any of you good folk help me out with the stat block on page 15 of Escape from Old Korvosa.

1) The stat block says the assassins have 2 off-hand attacks, but they don't have imp 2WF. Give them the extra feat or drop the second off hand attack??

2) In the "before combat" section it says that they cast cat's grace (lvl2), spider climb(lvl1) and expeditious retreat (lvl1).
further along it says they try casting hold person on a character standing in a burning square. But the spells known gives them only 1 lvl2 spell per day, and further in the stat block it says they have an INT of 8, so they wouldn't even be able to cast spells at all.
If I look up the red mantis assassin spell progression, it shows that a lvl3 assassin has 0 lvl2 spells per day, so only bonus spells for high INT

So in order to fix this I would have to boost their INT from 8 to somewhere around 20 to get 2 bonus lvl2 spells.

This boost, combined with the extra feat for imp 2WF would seriously increase the threat these guys pose to the party

Any suggestions on how to best fix this??

thnx

Bart

Can any of you good folk help me out with the stat block on page 15 of Escape from Old Korvosa.

1) The stat block says the assassins have 2 off-hand attacks, but they don't have imp 2WF. Give them the extra feat or drop the second off hand attack??

I believe in the GM Reference thread this is answered by James saying to drop the extra attack. I don't believe they have the pre-reqs for Imp 2wf anyways.

2) In the "before combat" section it says that they cast cat's grace (lvl2), spider climb(lvl1) and expeditious retreat (lvl1).
further along it says they try casting hold person on a character standing in a burning square. But the spells known gives them only 1 lvl2 spell per day, and further in the stat block it says they have an INT of 8, so they wouldn't even be able to cast spells at all.
If I look up the red mantis assassin spell progression, it shows that a lvl3 assassin has 0 lvl2 spells per day, so only bonus spells for high INT

So in order to fix this I would have to boost their INT from 8 to somewhere around 20 to get 2 bonus lvl2 spells.

As I am running this for PF rules instead of 3.5 I have just started to do the conversion for this one. I have been adding a level to all opponents with character levels to keep the CR the same. This gives the RMA one 2nd level spell per day.

I am also using the PF conversion of the RMA at Archive of Nethys where it uses Cha for casting, which is should since it casts like a bard. That way it will have an additional spell per day needed.

thanks for the quick response. Indeed CHA looks like the better stat since they cast spontaneously

grtz

Bart

The title of your post is a huge spoiler; now everyone just surfing the messageboards who sees your post knows that when they travel to Vencarlo's residence they will be ambushed! No sense saying spoiler, then placeing "spoiling information" in the title>

Can any of you good folk help me out with the stat block on page 15 of Escape from Old Korvosa.

1) The stat block says the assassins have 2 off-hand attacks, but they don't have imp 2WF. Give them the extra feat or drop the second off hand attack??

2) In the "before combat" section it says that they cast cat's grace (lvl2), spider climb(lvl1) and expeditious retreat (lvl1).
further along it says they try casting hold person on a character standing in a burning square. But the spells known gives them only 1 lvl2 spell per day, and further in the stat block it says they have an INT of 8, so they wouldn't even be able to cast spells at all.
If I look up the red mantis assassin spell progression, it shows that a lvl3 assassin has 0 lvl2 spells per day, so only bonus spells for high INT

So in order to fix this I would have to boost their INT from 8 to somewhere around 20 to get 2 bonus lvl2 spells.

This boost, combined with the extra feat for imp 2WF would seriously increase the threat these guys pose to the party

Any suggestions on how to best fix this??

thnx

Bart

It's also possible to just swap their intelligence and charisma to achieve the desired effect. I'm willing to agree that the Red Mantis Assassins as stat-ed here are a royal mess.

The title of your post is a huge spoiler; now everyone just surfing the messageboards who sees your post knows that when they travel to Vencarlo's residence they will be ambushed! No sense saying spoiler, then placeing "spoiling information" in the title>

Took me a while to notice, but I fixed the title to be less spoilery.

It's also possible to just swap their intelligence and charisma to achieve the desired effect. I'm willing to agree that the Red Mantis Assassins as stat-ed here are a royal mess.

Scratch what I said earlier- I meant to say "swap Cha with Wis" (unless their Wisdom was already 8). The point is give them Cha, nuke Wisdom if you need a dump stat! They're religious fanatics, so they naturally have weak wills.

Kaushal Avan Spellfire wrote:

It's also possible to just swap their intelligence and charisma to achieve the desired effect. I'm willing to agree that the Red Mantis Assassins as stat-ed here are a royal mess.

Scratch what I said earlier- I meant to say "swap Cha with Wis" (unless their Wisdom was already 8). The point is give them Cha, nuke Wisdom if you need a dump stat! They're religious fanatics, so they naturally have weak wills.

That doesn't make sense (because in Pathfinder, Wisdom is the MOST important stat for most faith-based characters) and it's kinda borderline insulting.

In any case, the Red Mantis assassins are supposed to be Charisma-based casters, because the're closer to bards in the way they use magic than actual wizards or clerics. There was an unfortunate error early on in the prestige class that used Intelligence by accident and that has had a few ripple effects.

So the best bet is to just swap their Int and Charisma. An even easier change is to just raise their Charisma to match their Intelligence. An even EASIER solution is to ignore the error and just run with it in play, of course. ;-)

Gotta go with James on that one. Your assassin is going to die a horrible death. No sense making the math add up for the last 6 to 18 seconds of his life.